KingoftheCheese:Yes, but how many of them, as drones, still identified with their original race? None. "We are the Borg", not "We are a bunch of Klingons, Humans, Bolians, etc. that have been assimilated..."

The fact remains that even if they did not choose to be, they were all Borg and they made up a unique collective of people. That is a race.

No, it's really not, by any definition of the word. If Picard had chosen to destroy them all right then and there, billions of lives and thousands of civilizations wouldn't have been assimilated. Even he acknowledged that later on.

Mugato:KingoftheCheese: Yes, but how many of them, as drones, still identified with their original race? None. "We are the Borg", not "We are a bunch of Klingons, Humans, Bolians, etc. that have been assimilated..."

The fact remains that even if they did not choose to be, they were all Borg and they made up a unique collective of people. That is a race.

No, it's really not, by any definition of the word. If Picard had chosen to destroy them all right then and there, billions of lives and thousands of civilizations wouldn't have been assimilated. Even he acknowledged that later on.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, friend.

Of course, it totally fits the high moral code of Picard not to use Hugh as a weapon. It makes sense for his character, even with his past as Locutis. The thing I always wondered about is if anyone else in Starfleet had a problem with letting Hugh go. How many lives were lost to the Borg after Hugh? How many members of Starfleet were already mad at Picard xfor Locutis and then he let Hugh go? Picard is told by Starfleet to stay away at the beginning of First Contact because they don't trust him because of Locutis. Okay, but it'd be a nice enhancer to throw a line in about someone at Starfleet Command not trusting him to 'really fight' the Borg.When instead he'd become a more determined Borg killer than anybody. The Picard of First Contact would have used Hugh, no problem.

Mugato:Anyway, TNG had a huge catalog of shiatty episodes, even if you don't count the first two seasons.

TNG and all the Star Trek series usually produced 26 episodes a season. Twice as many as pick-your-favorite-critically-acclaimed-cable-drama. Crap was inevitable, and it's amazing there wasn't more. A worst-of list suggests if they'd had a 24-episode season there would be no bad episodes.

KingoftheCheese:Mugato: KingoftheCheese: Yes, but how many of them, as drones, still identified with their original race? None. "We are the Borg", not "We are a bunch of Klingons, Humans, Bolians, etc. that have been assimilated..."

The fact remains that even if they did not choose to be, they were all Borg and they made up a unique collective of people. That is a race.

No, it's really not, by any definition of the word. If Picard had chosen to destroy them all right then and there, billions of lives and thousands of civilizations wouldn't have been assimilated. Even he acknowledged that later on.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, friend.

The Borg Collective is akin to cancer. Anyone can catch/become part of it. The victims are just that, victims. To eradicate the Collective is no worse than trying to eradicate cancer. People already infected will most likely die, but countless more will live long lives without it's presence.

Dumb-Ass-Monkey:KingoftheCheese: Mugato: KingoftheCheese: Yes, but how many of them, as drones, still identified with their original race? None. "We are the Borg", not "We are a bunch of Klingons, Humans, Bolians, etc. that have been assimilated..."

The fact remains that even if they did not choose to be, they were all Borg and they made up a unique collective of people. That is a race.

No, it's really not, by any definition of the word. If Picard had chosen to destroy them all right then and there, billions of lives and thousands of civilizations wouldn't have been assimilated. Even he acknowledged that later on.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, friend.

The Borg Collective is akin to cancer. Anyone can catch/become part of it. The victims are just that, victims. To eradicate the Collective is no worse than trying to eradicate cancer. People already infected will most likely die, but countless more will live long lives without it's presence.

you are advocating killing everyone who has a deadly infectious disease. you realize that, right?

The All-Powerful Atheismo:Dumb-Ass-Monkey: KingoftheCheese: Mugato: KingoftheCheese: Yes, but how many of them, as drones, still identified with their original race? None. "We are the Borg", not "We are a bunch of Klingons, Humans, Bolians, etc. that have been assimilated..."

The fact remains that even if they did not choose to be, they were all Borg and they made up a unique collective of people. That is a race.

No, it's really not, by any definition of the word. If Picard had chosen to destroy them all right then and there, billions of lives and thousands of civilizations wouldn't have been assimilated. Even he acknowledged that later on.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one, friend.

The Borg Collective is akin to cancer. Anyone can catch/become part of it. The victims are just that, victims. To eradicate the Collective is no worse than trying to eradicate cancer. People already infected will most likely die, but countless more will live long lives without it's presence.

you are advocating killing everyone who has a deadly infectious disease. you realize that, right?

Yeah but the Borg never gave consent to become Borg, they're effectively already dead. If they were all wiped out then entire civilizations would be saved. Would you hesitate wiping out all zombies if/when the zombie apocalypse happens?

Yeah but the Borg never gave consent to become Borg, they're effectively already dead. If they were all wiped out then entire civilizations would be saved. Would you hesitate wiping out all zombies if/when the zombie apocalypse happens?

Hugh proved your assertion incorrect. Hugh's rebel followers also prove it for the rest of the borg too, showing it's not an isolated incident.

The All-Powerful Atheismo:Hugh proved your assertion incorrect. Hugh's rebel followers also prove it for the rest of the borg too, showing it's not an isolated incident.

Sure but is it realistic to try and capture billions of drones and un-assimilate them, provide them all with alcoves like Seven of Nine had to use? Even if that were possible in a hundred years or so, what about all the billions of people that are being assimilated in the meantime?

Sure but is it realistic to try and capture billions of drones and un-assimilate them, provide them all with alcoves like Seven of Nine had to use? Even if that were possible in a hundred years or so, what about all the billions of people that are being assimilated in the meantime?

No, but the crux of the episode was that it was wrong to kill Hugh to destroy the rest of them. Nobody, neither Picard nor anybody in this thread, said it was wrong to kill borg that were actively trying to kill Enterpriseans.

Bored Horde:Darmok is contentious. You either respect a show for a courageous, challenging concept or you evaluate them purely on the execution. Darmok was an episode that tried to show how difficult communication with aliens would be, and it did a good job. It's the best, hardest sci-fi episode in Star Trek history. Great stuff.

Darmok wasn't just about alien communication; it was about communication at all. Think about how much blood was shed when any civilization meets another. Think of how many native Americans and English settlers died because they simply couldn't talk to each other. Language isn't just functional descriptions; translating between one and the other isn't simply a matter of replacing one word or one sound or one phrase with another. Language has its origins in the very culture and mental world view of its speaker. When the English settlers made contracts with the native Americans for property, what they didn't understand was that not just the word, but the very concept of "property" was foreign to the natives.

Darmok demonstrated this beautifully and thanks in no small part to Patrick Stewart's ability to demonstrate epiphany.

Chain of Command and The Best of Both Worlds were what the TNG movies should have been, but none of them had the conceptual greatness of the great single episodes. I don't consider them to be in the top 5 of episodes because they're wonderfully executed formulaic good times.

I'll give you Best of Both Worlds; that was fun sci-fi suspense but it wasn't thought-provoking allegory -- that's what Trek is and that's what makes Trek great.

But Chain of Command was a wonderful allegory of torture. Not just from the point of view of the tortured, but the torturer as well. The rest of the episode was mostly just filler but that last scene where Gul Madred frantically attempted to break Picard, even with something as trivial as the number of lights...that one scene demonstrated the torturer's mentality better than anything I've seen in media.

Also, DS9 may have had a higher batting average, but TNG seasons 3-5 contains the best Trek ever.

Agreed. DS9 was fun and the writing, acting and production quality was, on average, far ahead of what TNG had. But it failed to include the very core property of Star Trek -- what made it relevant instead of just another decent space soap opera; it failed to include morality.

I love the TNG threads where all the people get mad about Darmok & can't get past the exact words. It's just one of those things you have to grok. It's not about the literal words, "Shaka, when the walls fell".

If you get tied up in how it would be so easy to piece together the language if you heard "Shaka, when the walls fell," then you probably take Trek a little too literally & too seriously.

KingoftheCheese:Mugato: KingoftheCheese: My favorite TNG episode of all time was I, Borg. They showed a side of the Borg that was almost human, albeit quite naive. For several years, I would participate in sims on the Compuserve Star Trek forum, using the screen name HughBorg. I would even go so far as to say that Hugh is in my top five favorite Star Trek characters.

Yeah, and Picard not uploading Hugh with the paradox algorithm that would have destroyed the Collective was a treasonous offense.

No. It was compassion. Locutus was still a very big part of Picard when dealing with Hugh. He knew what it was like. He had experienced assimilation and the hive mind. And although they were a notoriously dangerous race of people, they were still that- a race of people. Destroying an entire civilization was against everything Picard ever stood for.

You're arguing with the guy who likes to project realism -- as in "what would happen in THE REAL WORLD" -- into Star Trek....

legion_of_doo:I love the TNG threads where all the people get mad about Darmok & can't get past the exact words. It's just one of those things you have to grok. It's not about the literal words, "Shaka, when the walls fell".

If you get tied up in how it would be so easy to piece together the language if you heard "Shaka, when the walls fell," then you probably take Trek a little too literally & too seriously.

Measure of a ManYesterday's EnterpriseBest of Both Worlds I & IIDevil's Due -- WTF you say? It's TNG's brilliant criticism of faith and religion.Darmok -- I understand why it's infuriating, but it's also a pretty sophisticated examination of communication.Cause and Effect -- pure entertainment, but TNG at its best with a wacky science fiction plot.I, Borg -- This is one of the greats that always gets overlooked. It's an excellent examination of if mass murder, even genocide, can be justifiable.The Inner LightChain of Command I & IITapestryAll Good Things...

legion_of_doo:I love the TNG threads where all the people get mad about Darmok & can't get past the exact words. It's just one of those things you have to grok. It's not about the literal words, "Shaka, when the walls fell".

If you get tied up in how it would be so easy to piece together the language if you heard "Shaka, when the walls fell," then you probably take Trek a little too literally & too seriously.

But but but an island of tiny people just DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. I mean, am I supposed to believe that people really kill each other over which side of the egg to break first? That's just not believable, bro.

It was our D&D night, but everyone else except me was a hardcore Trek fan. I grudgingly agreed to suspend play to watch the first episode.

By the time Troi got to feeling "GREAT SORRRROOOOWWW" I had caused such a ruckus with my insults and giggling at how bad it was that I got banished to the kitchen until it was over.

Watched every episode with my dad when it came on new every week 1987-1994...... He was sooooo excited about it and talking about it all the time before the premiere. He watched every new episode of the original series when it came on too. And unlike many, many people at the time, gave TNG a chance to be as good as/eclipse TOS. He likes TNG more to this day...... We debate about it and quote episodes all the time. Now when we catch it on re-runs, we try to beat each other to name the episode and plot when it starts on the TV.

I'm a fan of the list. I also think Time's Arrow would have made a really cool movie if they'd developed it a little more. Just started re-watching the whole series for about the 500th time, with my Nitpicker's Guide in hand.

In all seriousness though, my favorites out of the ones not listed in the article would be Cause and Effect, Conundrum, Remember Me, The Drumhead, Clues, Time's Arrow, and Darmok (which was showing the night my daughter was born, so some bias there).